IoT’s rapid rise fuelling an explosion of data

The relentless growth of Internet of Things (IoT) shows no signs of slowing.

According to IDC, worldwide spending on IoT is expected to exceed US$745 billion in 2019, an increase of 15.4 percent from the $646 billion recorded in 2018.

The industry is forecast to maintain a double-digit annual growth rate throughout the 2017-2022 period, surpassing the $1 trillion milestone in 2022. The end result being positive demand for data centres, particularly in edge computing circles.

"Adoption of IoT is happening across industries, in governments, and in consumers' daily lives. We are increasingly observing how data generated by connected devices is helping businesses run more efficiently, gain insight into business processes, and make real-time decisions. For consumers, access to data is changing how they are informed about the status of households, vehicles, and family members as well as their own health and fitness," says IDC Internet of Things and Mobility vice president Carrie MacGillivray.

"The next chapter of IoT is just beginning as we see a shift from digitally enabling the physical to automating and augmenting the human experience with a connected world."

Around the world, the industries forecast to invest the most into IoT this year are discrete manufacturing ($119 billion), process manufacturing ($78 billion), transportation ($71 billion), and utilities ($61 billion).

Manufacturing features heavily, and IDC says this spending will be largely focused on solutions that support operations and production asset management, Meanwhile, in transportation more than half of spending will be allocated to freight monitoring, followed by fleet management. And finally in utilities, spending will be swallowed up mainly by smart grids for electricity, gas, and water.

While these industries are set to take the biggest pieces of the pie, the industries with the fastest compound annual growth rates (CAGR) over the aforementioned five-year forecast period are insurance (17.1 percent), federal/central government (16.1 percent), and healthcare (15.4 percent).

"Consumer IoT spending will reach $108 billion in 2019, making it the second largest industry segment. The leading consumer use cases will be related to the smart home, personal wellness, and connected vehicle infotainment," says IDC Customer Insights & Analysis research director Marcus Torchia.

"Within smart home, home automation and smart appliances will both experience strong spending growth over the forecast period and will help to make consumer the fastest growing industry segment overall with a five-year CAGR of 17.8 percent."

In a common theme, it’s IoT services that will claim the largest technology category in 2019 with $258 billion being allocated toward traditional IT and installation services as well as non-traditional device and operational services. It will also have a five-year CAGR of 14.2 percent, a faster growth than overall IoT spending.

However, hardware spending will be nipping on its heels with $250 billion, predominantly fueled by module/sensor purchases that will bring in more than $200 billion.

IoT software spending is expected to total $154 billion and will have the fastest growth over the five-year period with a CAGR of 16.6 percent.

It’s no surprises of which nations will be leading the IoT charge in 2019, with the United States and China accounting for $194 billion and $182 billion respectively. The countries that will experience the fastest growth over the forecast period are all located in Latin America, including Mexico (28.3 percent CAGR), Colombia (24.9 percent CAGR), and Chile (23.3 percent CAGR).